Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, announced on Friday that they would upgrade relations to a "strategic partnership".

The announcement was made following Assad's first official visit to China in almost two decades, in what was a rare trip abroad for the Syrian president, who until recently was an international pariah. 

Syria is clearly on the verge of collapse in terms of the economy and humanitarian situation.

The country's southern province of al-Suwayda', whose population primarily comes from the Druze minority, is currently witnessing protests on an unprecedented scale. While the province has previously seen protests motivated primarily by the country's deteriorating economic and livelihood situation, these protests are now far more widespread in the province and larger in scale.

A hidden disadvantage of our ruling class within the US/NATO imperialist sphere is that frequently, these elites need to scramble in response to developments they haven’t foreseen, and whose consequential outcomes they have limited control over. When the Democratic Party and its partnered intelligence agencies used the DNC leaks to construct a narrative about “Russian hacking,” they hadn’t planned the inciting incident; they were reacting to it.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will travel to China on September 21 to participate in a Syrian-Chinese summit at the official invitation of his counterpart Xi Jinping. According to Syrian state media, Assad will lead a high-level political and economic delegation for official meetings in the cities of Beijing and Guangzhou.

Syrians living under the de-facto rule of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Hasakah governorate have launched mass demonstrations and a general strike to oppose a fuel price hike of over 300 percent for public transport and industrial vehicles.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be leading a high-ranking delegation for an official visit to China in “the coming weeks” to hold talks with authorities in Beijing on the expansion of bilateral relations, according to a report.

The Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Sunday that Assad would be leading the politico-economic Syrian delegation to China.

The US military occupation of the oil fields in north east Syria came under attack recently, and there were some who said it could foreshadow a US military withdrawal. However, the violence ceased, and the US supported Kurdish separatists are continuing to hide under the Pentagon’s wings.

The Obama created US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change began in 2011, but has failed. However, it was successful in destroying the country and preventing its recovery from an armed conflict utilizing terrorists supported by the US and its allies.